


Reconnect

by Fallowsthorn



Series: Polyamorous Work Crew [2]
Category: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallowsthorn/pseuds/Fallowsthorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tron first realizes something's wrong when he can't feel his Guards in the back of his head anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconnect

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the same prompt as linked in part one.

Tron has known something is wrong all millicycle. He just can't  _place_  it, and it's eating at him like a gridbug swarm. It feels like there's some piece of him missing, like he was dumb enough to forget his disc somewhere, but when he checks, it's docked on his back like it should be.   
  
He'd tried getting help from Flynn, but he can't put the feeling into words. It's not that he doesn't want to; the missing-something-feeling just defies his programming and makes him inarticulate. Practicing at Disc Wars or Lightcycles in the Arena does nothing to help. Tron is ready to derezz himself by hitting his head against the nearest wall.   
  
So he resigns himself to ignoring the feeling and trying to focus on what Flynn is telling him, hoping that the whatever it is goes away.   
  
Tron knows, even before he sees Clu walk up with circuits the color of the MCP's, that it's a futile hope.   
  
Clu and Flynn are talking, but Tron is barely listening over the sudden aching, pounding sense of loss in the back of his head. He knows what it is a second later, when Clu steps back and the Black Guard file out from wherever they've been hiding, circuits blood-dark and red.   
  
Tron staggers for a second, in shock and in the wave of loneliness and emptiness that engulfs him. That's what he's been missing, that's the feeling that's been waving its arms like a bright warning flag all day.   
  
The Guard have abandoned him, and he can no longer feel their resonance in his head. Tron scans the faces desperately, looking for some sign of recognition. React, Pyro, Autro, Scowt.... All of them look at him blankly and move to attack.   
  
Tron unhooks his disc and snaps at Flynn, "Run! Go!" Flynn does, freeing Tron of distraction. He can afford to mourn later, whether Clu corrupted the Guards' code or they switched allegiances willingly. 

* * *

Rinzler can't mourn. He doesn't know what it is. 

* * *

The mourning comes later, after Clu and Flynn's reintegration. SamFlynn and Alan_1 are working on some of the other programs, the more salvageable ones, to see if they can undo Clu's rectification. Tron takes a cycle to the deep Outlands, where the only light comes from occasional bursts of data in the clouds. He set his disc on the ground beside him, sits down leaning against a nearby rock formation, and finally, finally, lets himself acknowledge the loss. 

It hits him much harder than he'd thought it would, much more intensely. He bows his head and hears his breath coming harshly, raggedly, like it belongs to someone else. They are gone.  _Gone._  After so many cycles spent training and working and  _feeling_  together, almost as one unit, they are  _gone_.   
  
Tron feels like part of his code has been torn away.   
  
He doesn't know how many microcycles he spends just staring at the Outland floor and grieving for the loss of that connection. When the grieving turns into wishing, though, he stops himself. Wishing doesn't help anything, and it's a sign he's accepted that it won't come back. Can't come back.   
  
Tron sighs, feeling his breath catch in his throat, and gets up to write the experience on his disc and rezz the 'cycle.   
  
And then freezes, because along with his disc syncing, he can feel an almost alien, gridbug-light, tentative touch at the back of his mind.   
  
Tron, after a second of utter, wild, hoping shock, sends the image of an open door along the link, and the feeling of joy. The second's involuntary; he couldn't stop it if he tried, but he wouldn't stop it if he could.   
  
The link strengthens, becomes real and there and present and  _Users,_  what he was grieving for had to be a pale imitation of this because  _it was back,_  thank the Users, it was back.   
  
Tron shuts his eyes and sends a question down the link - a tricky thing to do until they'd figured out a rudimentary sort of "language". He send a lot of images of faces - doesn't matter which, but he comes up with the Guards' - and the feeling of curiosity attached.   
  
The answer he immediately gets is a picture of Raysar's face, and a feeling of being alive.   
  
It's the feeling that tells Tron there's something to dread. Reluctantly, he sends some random numbers, 2, 14, 9, and again the curiosity. He gets a five back, and a feeling of reluctant sickness that's rolling in Tron's belly, too.   
  
Half-knowing the answer already, Tron sends an image of himself looking around for something.   
  
The only answer he gets from Raysar is a feeling of deep, anguished loss, and a memory of a program deresolving into pixels.   
  
Tron's circuits flash once, and he throws back his head and  _keens_. There's no one to hear his loss out here but the clouds and datasphere above.   
  
It hurts worse than mourning the loss of the connection did, even more so when Raysar sends him some of the faces they've lost. React, Scowt, Tress, Hion, Ketrel, more. All derezzed. Nine connections that will never be again, after so much wild hope.   
  
Raysar waits until Tron's cry of pain stops echoing in his head, and then gently asks where Tron is. Tron sends him a picture of the sector he's in, and gets a feeling of support and a picture of a moving lightcycle in turn.   
  
Any others? Tron asks.   
  
Autro, Pulse, Raysar says, and Users touch-change-code Cyrus now. They there soon.   
  
By "there" Raysar means the back of Tron's head, and also physically where he is now.   
  
Tron smiles and collapses back against the rock he was leaning on. He's waited a thousand cycles. He can wait a few microcycles more.


End file.
